Juststeve

How is it we think we know that people were not challenging the resurrection accounts once they were reduced to writing beginning about 40 years after the alleged fact. There may have been plenty of naysayers. They may have denied the resurrection either orally or in writings that we no longer have access to.

To claim that the naturally impossible occurred because no one denied it at the time is a bridge too far.

Steve

Toto

No one here is arguing that, of course. That is the sort of Christian apologetic argument that gives apologists a bad name.

Juststeve

Toto:

I am aware of who makes that argument. I'm just pointing out one of the things wrong with the argument. Arguments from silence are dodgy things whether made by apologists or mythers. Wouldn't you agree?

Steve

Iskander

It is indeed ironic that the only argument that mythers have is from silence.

Sheshbazzar

If they had, and particularly if their rebuttals were detailed and credible, they would have been hunted down and slaughtered if they were yet alive, or could be located, and alive or long dead, their writings sought out and all destroyed as being "Heretical".
(The book burnings went on and on and on for centuries...and it is still a popular practice by some Christians with any books that they don't agree with.)

There is every reason to expect that this is exactly what happened.
We have Origin's "Against Celsus", but of course all copies of Celsus original writings are 'lost', along with damn near all contemporary criticism of, or ANY non-Christian observations on the actual beliefs or the actions Christians during the first four centuries of Christian development.
Christianity through extreme state sponsored censorship has delivered us a doctored, and fabricated 'Christian friendly' version of 'history'.

Juststeve

Shesh:

I have no reason to think that Christians had the power to hunt dissenters down and kill them during the lifetime of supposed eyewitnesses. It was to they I was referring when I spoke of naysayers. There may well have been people who actually knew Jesus who were debunking the stories later told by Christians. We just have no way of being sure whether there were or not.

It is certainly the case that when you combine irrational beliefs, religious or otherwise, with power, you often get persecution. On that we agree.

Steve

Toto

Arguments from silence are often quite powerful.

The problem with the Christian apologists' arguments go well beyond being based on an argument from silence. The resurrection is an improbable event to say the least, and the evidence for it does not meet the standards for proof for such an event; and the reports of the event itself cannot be reliably dated.

And the case for mythicism is not based on an argument from silence. That could be the subject of another thread, if you actually wanted to research the question.

aa5874

Well, you seem not to have even read the NT Canon or the EARLIEST EXTANT codices.

There is actual written texts from antiquity which claimed Jesus was RAISED from the dead.

Please get FAMILIAR with the evidence for the resurrection in the NT.

It is HJers who do NOT believe the NT and claim Jesus was only a Man and was NOT raised from the dead, CONTRARY to the evidence in the NT.

The Codex Sinaiticus is regarded as the Earliest Extant Codices and this is found in gMark.


Mark 6.48 Mark 9 Mark 16.6 It is NOW clear that it is the resurrection of MJ that has evidence in the NT Canon and that Jesus was WITNESSED eating FISH by the disciples when he was supposed to be dead.


Luke Now, where is the credible HISTORICAL source from antiquity that can show Jesus did live and was NOT raised from the dead?

ALL we KNOW is that virtually all the authors of the NT claimed Jesus was RAISED from the dead and that PEOPLE SAW him EATING FISH.

By the way, Jesus was some kind of Ghost in the NT.

aa5874

You MUST agree that you really don't know what you are talking about. You have no credible sources of antiquity for what you say about Jesus.

But, WE KNOW that the Jews (the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes) would NOT have believed a man ROSE from the dead on the third day.

See "Wars of the Jews" 2 and Antiquities of the Jews 18.

Iskander

Yes, you are right